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Lemurian Ttme War 275

16
Lemurian Time War
Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (Ccm)

nightmare of time coming apart and-to use his exact wordsspiraling out of control. To the Board, spirals were particularly
repugnant symbols of imperfection and volatility. Unlike dosed
loops, spirals always have loose ends. This allows them to spread,
making them contagious and unpredictable. The Board was counting on Kaye to contain the situation. He was assigned the task of
terminating the spiral templex.5
HYPERSTITION

The account that follows charts WiJliam S. Burroughs's involvement
in an occult time war, and considerably exceeds most accepted
conceptions of social and historical probability. It is based on
'sensitive information' passed to ecru by an intelligence source
whom we have called William Kaye. 1 The narrative has been
partiaJly fictionalized in order to protect this individual's identity.
. Kaye himself admitted that his experiences had made him prone
to ' paranoid-chronomaniac hallucination', and ecru continues to
find much of his tale extremely implausible.2 Nevertheless, while
suspecting that his message had been severely compromised by
dubious ·inferences, noise, and disinformation, we have become
increasingly convinced that he was indeed an 'insider' of some
kind, even if the organization he had penetrated was itself an elaborate hoax, or collective delusion. Kaye referred to this organization
as 'The Order', or-following Burroughs-The Board'.
When reduced to its basic provocation, Kaye's claim was this: The
Gl1ost Lemurs ofMadagascat3-a text dating from 1987 which he also
referred to as the Burroughs Necronomicon-had been an exact and
decisive influence on the magical and military career of one Captain
Mission, three centuries previously. Mission appears in historical
record as a notorious pirate, active in the period around 1700 AD;
he was to become renowned as · the founder of the anarchistic
colony of Llbertatia, established on the island of Madagascar. Kaye
asserted that he had personally encountered clear evidence of
Burroughs's ' impact upon Mission' at the private library of Peter
Vysparov, where Kaye worked most of his life. The Vysparov collection, he unswervingly maintained, held an ancient illustrated transcript of The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar, inscribed meticulously in
Mission's own hand.4
Kaye assured us that the Board considered the 'demonstrable time
rift' he was describing to be a 'matter of the gravest concern'. He
explained that the organization had been born in reaction to a
274

Vysparov had sought out Burroughs because of his evident interest
in the convergence of sorcery, dreams and fiction. ln the immediate
postwar years, Vyspa.rov had convened the so-called Cthulhu Club
to investigate connections between the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft,
mythology, science and magic, and was at this stage in the process
of formalizing the constitution of Miskatonic Virtual University
(MVU), a loose aggregation of non-standard theorists whose work
could broadly be said to have 'Lovecraftian' connotations. The interest in Lovecraft's fiction was motivated by its exemplification of the
practice of hyperstition, a concept that had been elaborated and
keenly debated since the inception of the Cthulhu Club. Loosely
defined, the coinage refers to 'fictions that make themselves real'.
Kaye drew Ccru's attention to Burroughs's description of viruses
in 'The Book of Breething' segment of Ah Pook is Here and Other
Texts: 'And what is a virus? Perhaps simply a pictorial series like
Egyptian glyphs that makes itself real' (APH 102). The papers Kaye
left for Ccru included a copy of this page of the Ah Pook text, with
these two sentences-italicized in the original text-heavily underlined. For Kaye, the echo of Vysparov's language was 'unequivocal
evidence' of the Russian's influence upon Burroughs's work after
1958. Whether or not this is the case, such passages indicate that
Burroughs, like Vysparov, was interested in the 'hyperstitional' relations between writing, signs and reality.
ln the hyperstitional model Kaye outlined, fiction is not opposed
to the real. Rather, reality is understood to be composed of
fictions-consistent semiotic terrains that condition perceptual,
affective and behavioral responses. Kaye considered Burroughs's
work to be 'exemplary of hyperstitional practice'. Burroughs
construed writing-and art in general- not aesthetically, but functionally-that is to say, magically, with magic defined as the use of
signs to produce changes in reality.

Writing
operates not as a passive representation but as an active agent of
transformation and a gateway through which entities can emerge:
'by writing a universe. and whose
existence is in conflict with other 'reality programs'. Burroughs is thus already initiating an act of
war against OGU. 'Religions are
weapons' (WL 202). Even representative
realism participates-albeit unknowingly-in magical war.
which operates at the most fatal level of reality. manufacture realities
for themselves~ realities whose potency often depends upon the stupefactio·n.276 Alternatives: Realities and Resistances
Kaye maintained that it was 'far from accidental' that Burroughs's
equation of reality and fiction had been most widely embraced only
in its negative aspect-as a variety of 'postmodern' ontological
skepticism-rather than in its positive sense.
Jn OGU. collaborating with the dominant control system by implicitly endorsing its
daim to be the only possible reality. not intervening in. The hyperstltlonal process of entities 'making
themselves real' is precisely a passage. or OGU. the writer makes such a universe possible'
(AM 176). Kaye said. Far
from constituting a subversion of representative realism.
prophylactically delimiting all contact between the fiction and
what is outside it. in which the
existence of a world independent of discourse is denied altogether. tlie postmodern celebration of the text without a referent merely consummates a process that representative realism had initiated. The magical function of words and signs is both
condemned as evil and dedared to be delusory. where questions of
biological destiny and immortality are decided. Burroughs treats all conditions of existence
as results of cosmic conflicts between competing intelligence agencies.
According to Kaye. OGU establishes a fiction. in which
potentials-already-active virtualities-realize themselves.
In making themselves real. differentiating between 'degrees of
realization' ls crucial.
.
presenting it as a simple representation of Truth). the world. Kaye was
quick to point out.'
THE ONE GOD UNIVERSE
Burroughs names the dominant control program One God
Universe. the metaphysics of Burroughs's 'dearly hyperstitional' fictions can be starkly contrasted with those at work in
postmodernism.
It is a short step to a dimension of pristine textuality.
ln order to operate effectively. OGU's power
works through fictions that repudiate their own fictional status:
anti-fictions. surrendering it to the role of reflecting. 'And that'. For Kaye.
Representative realism severs writing from any active function. OGU must first of all deny the existence of magical war itself. The throne is seen to be contested. reducing alternative reality systems to negatively marked
components of its own mythos: other reality programs become Evil. But OGU's ronfidence that fiction has safely been contained means that anti-OGU
agents can use fiction as a covert line of communication and a
secret weapon: '[h]e concealed and revealed the knowledge in
fictional form' (PDR 115). fiction is safely contained by a metaphysical 'frame'. For postmodemists. or un-nonfictions.
From the controllers' point of view. a transformation. There is only one reality: its own. 'it is of course
imperative that Burroughs is thought of as merely a writer of fiction. 'is why fiction can be a weapon in the struggle against Control'.
associated with the powers of deception and delusion.
Burroughs seeks to get outside the control codes in order to
dismantle and rearrange them. Where
realism merely reproduces the currently dominant reality program
from inside. as an investigation
into the magical powers of incantation and manifestation: the efficacy of the virtual. Kaye said. never identifying the existence of the program as such. subjugation and enslavement of populations. a partisan action in a war where multitudes of factual
events are guided by the powers of illusion. which
builds its monopolistic dominion upon the magical power of the
Word: upon programming and illusion. OGU incorporates all competing fictions into its own story (the ultimate metanarrative). facilitating a
monopoly upon the magical power of language for OGU (which of
course denies that its own mythos exerts any magical influence. ln writing about magical war. Every act of writing is a sorcerous
Lemurian Tune War 277
operation.
That's why they have gone to such lengths to sideline him into a
ghetto of literary experimentation. the assimilation of Burroughs into textualist postmodernism constituted a deliberate act of 'interpretivist
sabotage'.
But these operations do not occur in neutral territory. whereas for
practitioners of hyperstition. He wages war against the fiction of OGU. the aim of which was to de-functionalize Burroughs's
writings by converting them into aesthetic exercises in style. entities (must) also. Burroughs's
fiction deliberately renounces the status of plausible representation
in order to operate directly upon this plane of magical war. the distinction between real
and unreal is not substantive or is held not to matter.

authorized version of reality-instead. He was convinced
the knowledge was 'dangerous' and that 'powerful forces were conspiring against him'. it felt as though
silent communication with a ghostly non-human companion had
flashed him forward to his life as an old man.
the fiction acts as a Chinese box-a container for sorcerous interventions in the world. the story that runs reality has to be
believed. to get out of OGU.
Even after his recovery the sense of oppression persisted. onion paper over
each picture. The frame is both used (for concealment) and
broken (the fictions potentiate changes in reality). and his writing implements
were archaic. and scarcely able to
stand.
KAYE AND BURROUGHS
Kaye's story began in the summer of 1958.
Techniques of escape depend on attaining the unbelief of assassinmagician Hassan i Sabbah: nothing is true.
Diagrams. he ' remembered' writing Tile Gllost Lemurs of Madagascar'although it wasn't writing exactly'. are as
real in a fiction about a fiction as they are when encountered raw. He emerged disoriented. apparently unintelligible disorder of time and identity. like a
'new dimension of gravity'. The
trigger was his encounter with a text that he was yet to compose:
' [A]n old picture book with gilt edged lithographs.6 As a result of this meeting Kaye was himself
introduced to Burroughs on 23 December of the same year. Oppressed by 'a crushing sensation of implacable destiny.278 Alternatives: Realities and Resistances
This. There is no doubt.
Burroughs told Kaye that. encountering his double. and working with cut-up
techniques. in another place
and time. that shortly after the winter of 1958 Burroughs starts writing cryptically of visions.
Flipping through the pages. for Kaye.
Although there is no direct historical evidence supporting Kaye's
description of events. Kaye cautioned that this must be carefully distinguished from ' postmodern relativism'. maps. the immediate period after the 1958 'episode'
provides compelling symptomatic evidence of a transformation in
. the anomalous episode. 'The Adversary's game plan is to persuade you that he does
not exist' (WL 12). he made a discovery that involved him in a
radical.7
As Burroughs hunted through the library's unparalleled collection
of rare occult works.8
Twenty-nine years would pass before Kaye understood what had
occurred. he would write: 'Time is a human
affliction. He could not then have known that Captain
Mission had taken the very same volume as his guide three centuries previously (already describing it as 'old'). several decades in the
future. 'Only those who can leave behind everything they have ever believed in can hope to escape' (WL 116).
but subjecting such semiotic contraband to multiple embeddings
allows a traffic in materials for decoding dominant reality that
would otherwise be proscribed.
It is dear from public documentary material that Burroughs was
predominantly a resident in Paris and London at this time. Burroughs entered a momentary catatonic trance state. The vision had granted him 'horrific
insight into the jail-house mind of the One God'. Burroughs-Sabbah's 'nothing
is true' cannot be equated with postmodernism's 'nothing is real'. RecaJling it later. blocking out contact between itself and the world. Rather than acting as a transcendental screen.
On the contrary: nothing is true because there is no single.
with a strange sardonic detachment. he was more than willing to describe. The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar in gold script'
(Burroughs 1987:30). there is a superfluity. 'paranormal phenomena'. during the trance. a systematic shedding of all
beliefs is a· prerequisite. which is also to say that the existence of a control program
determining reality must not be suspected or believed. that the ' invisible brothers are invading present time' (now in TE 209).
Once again. not a human invention but a prison' (GC 16). That's why.
Whereas hyperstitionaJ agitation produces a ' positive unbeliefa provisionalizing of any reality frame in the name of pragmatic
engagement rather than epistemological hesitation-OGU feeds on
belief. everything is permitted. although his biography is
Lemurian Tllile War 279
not sufficiently comprehensive to rule out an excursion to NY with
confidence. was 'a formula for hyperstitional practice'. Credulity in
the face of the OGU metanarrative is inevitably coupled with a
refusal to accept that entities like Control have any substantive existence. when his employer Peter
Vysparov met William S. at
Vysparov's private library in New York. belonging to someone else entirely. as
if fragments of a frozen time dimension were cascading into awareness'. Ccru
found no evidence of any trip to the US. however. Burroughs whilst conducting occult investigations in Paris. The episode sharpened his already vivid
impression that the human animal is cruelly caged in time by an
alien power. of
realities. In order to work. an excess. Despite his confusion. sets of abstract relations. tactical gambits.

Until the end of his life he struggled
against the 'Thing inside him.. the decisive implications of which took
several decades to surface. Kaye told Ccru.. so there is nothing for him to learn. and a constant
need to escape from possession. Because He
can do everything. And they don't want it changed' (GC 8).
Burroughs's adoption of these techniques was. the OGU is described as 'antimagical. (WL 101)
Also.
moving from the East and from the Western deserts. Time is limited time experienced by a sentient
creature. There wa. 'one
of the first effects (if one may be permitted to speak in so loose a way)
of the time-trauma'. The priests were aligning themselves on
one side or the other. It
was then that Burroughs's writing underwent a radical shift in direction. since He is already fucking everywhere. obsessive: '[l]n Time any being that is spontaneous and
alive will wither and die like an old joke' (WL 111). Burroughs is
emphatic.
(Wl 113)
For Kaye. of life being scripted in advance by malign entities: 'ff]he
custodians of the future convene. it is written.
Burroughs describes the One initiating a war against the Many:
These were troubled times. scripted into its unconsciously
performed habituated behaviors:
Time is that which ends.xii). Where monotheistic fiction tells of a rebellious secession from the primordial One.
the deadly enemy of. predictable. Naturally.Lemurian Time War 281
280 Alternatives: ReaUties and Resistances
Burroughs's strategies and preoccupations during this period. alive. unpredictable. eternally in
conflict: there is no possibility of unitary Truth. with the introduction of experimental techniques whose sole
purpose was to escape the bonds of the already-written.
The OGU is a pre-recorded universe of which He is the recorder. The Magical Universe is populated by many gods.s war in the heavens as the One
God attempted to exterminate or neutralize the Many Gods and establish an absolute seat of power. The 'cosmic
revelation' in the library produced in Burroughs 'a horror so profound'
that he would dedicate the rest of his life to plotting and propagating
escape routes from 'the board rooms and torture banks of time'
(NE 43). He can do nothing.
Such a universe gives rise to the dreary paradoxes-so familiar to
monotheistic theology-that necessarily attend omnipotence and
omniscience:
Consider the One God Universe: OGU. OGU control codings
far exceed ideological manipulation. Burroughs would describe a aushing feeling of
inevitability. The universe they are
imposing is controlled. dogmatic. Gysin's role in the discovery of these rut-ups
and fold-ins is well known.
THE ESCAPE FROM CONTROL
In Burroughs's mythology. since the nature of
reality is constantly contested by heterogeneous entities whose
interests are radically incommensurable. since the act of doing demands
opposition. the superiority of Burroughs's analysis of power-over
' trivial' ideology critique-consists in its repeated emphasis on the
relationship between control systems and temporality. OGU emerges once MU (the Magical
Universe) is violently overthrown by the forces of monopoly (WL
113). spontaneous. remarking
that: 'I Jive with the constant threat of possession.
It was in the immediate aftermath of the episode in the Vysparov
library that Burroughs exhibited the first signs of an apparently random attachment to lemurs. dead' (WL 59). the function of which was to subvert the
foundations of the pre-recorded universe. The Ugly Spirit' (GC 48). Keepers of the Board Books:
Mektoub. He knows everything. Revolution was spreading up from the South. but Kaye's story accounts for the special urgency with which Burroughs began deploying these new
methods in late 1958. Much later. The rut-ups and fold-ins were 'innovative time-war tactics'.. Sentient of time.9 'Cut the Word Lines with
scissors or switchblades as preferred . like 'a spy in somebody else's body where nobody knows who is spying on whom'
(cited by Douglas 1998:xxviii). The spirit recoils in horror from
such a deadly impasse. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. he notes also
that ' (a] basic impasse of all control machines is this: Control needs
time in which to exercise control' (AM 117). those who are committed to the magical universe. amounting to cosmic reality
programming. authoritarian.' (3M 71).. The presumption of chronological time is written into
the organism at the most basic level. because-at the limit--'the One God is Tune'
(WL 111).
Burroughs was unsure who was running him. Kaye attributes Burroughs's intense
antipathy toward pre-recording-a persistent theme in his fiction after
Naked Luncll--to his experiences in the Vysparov library. The Word Lines keep you in
Time . that is-making adjustments to time in
. from Control' (Q x.
He can't go anywhere. like
cowshit in Calcutta. charting
a flight from destiny.

ssible
stakes.'
Lemurian Tune War 283
THE RlFf
For almost 30 years Burroughs had . On the one hand. Control needs your
shit piss pain orgasm death. His libidinal conversion to a 'cat man' (see Cl ) al...'
Since writing customarily operates as the principal means of
'time-binding'.s writing involves the highest po..scular intention behaviour with
respect to the environment as a whole .s. but in the most abstract sense.s. orgasm addiction. con. fuck. Space has to be
understood not as empirical extension. anything but that they should be recognized as what they are: technologies for altering reality. By formatting the most basic biological processes of the organism in terms of temporality.ski'. nocturnal animal stirs at ..said. blowing a hole in the OGU 'present'..
Wherever he goes he takes time with him and imposes time' (GC
17). such as 'ring-tailed cat lemurs' (GC 3).scious
mind. his own account of this ' epi. On the
other hand. Make out lines to Space' (3M 71). human. saturating Burroughs's dreams and
writings with visions of lemurs. ' Man was born in time.scissor. eat. manifesting an intimate familiarization with the
'cat spirit' or 'creature' who partakes of many other species.ski call. still less as a transcendental
given. (APH 1 7)
Power operates most effectively not by per. a text that propelled his entire existence into the Rift
of Lemurian Time Wars.
Kaye consistently maintained that any attempt to date
Burroughs's encounter with the Rift involved a fundamental misconception. That is why time is a 'pri. all the
books.s or
switchblades as preferred . experimental Dada.. but by delimiting in advance what it is possible to experience.s their affect.282 Alternatives: Realities and Resistances
tenn. Korzyb. Fletch. it was in 1987 that Omni magazine commissioned and published Burroughs's short story 111e Ghost Lemurs
of Madagascar.s of what ~orzyb. building
more of the prison. It
was a matter of the gravest urgency that his works be dassified as
fanta. die. Burroughs rea. Control needs human time.
Burroughs wrote in his essay The Cat Inside.. Ru.s are binding themselves into time.' Kaye wrote.
1987 was the year in which Burroughs visited the Duke University
Lemur Conservation Center.
'You can see that Burroughs'.
Yet numerous signs indicate that by the late 1980s the Control
Complex was breaking down.s. The Word Lines keep you in Time .s and perceptions.
'Korzyb. human beings
are binding time for themselves: they 'can make information available through writing or oral tradition to other SAP human. and Venusian
conspiracy. as the zone of unbound potentialities lying beyond the purview of the OGU's already-written. already written. move.so
tracked and influenced an ever-deepening disillusionment with
the function of human sexuality. with round red eyes and a little red tongue
protruding. or prosirnians. redirecting Burroughs's flight from
pre-recorded destiny into a gulf of unsettled fate that he came to call
'' the Rift'. and Spooner11 exhibited a profound biological response that was the exact inversion of his instinctual revulsion
for centipedes.sun .ski.s neuro-mu.' Kaye .
For . shit.sies. a date that marked a
period of radical transition: the 'eye' of a 'spiral templex'. Cut
the in lines . He lives and dies in time. you can't overestimate
their influence on this planet-. 10 In Tile Western Landswhich Burroughs was writing during this year-he remarks that: 'At
sight of the Black Lemur.sought to neutralize that weapon. the writer experiences a delight that is almo~'t painful'
(WL 248).sought to evade what he had
been shown to be inevitable. 'He saw what time-binding really was.s outside
[their) area of contact and to future generations' (GC 48). A plant turns towards the
sun. ferrets and skunks' (CRN 244) and numerous varieties
of lemurs. His devotion
to Calico.. which constrain..
. Nevertheless. the 'sifaka lemur'. It was during this time that the obscure trauma at the Vysparov Library
flooded back with full force. 'Cut the Word Lines with . pi.. time-bound forever. ghosts from the Land of the Dead.soned that innovating new writing
techniques would unbind time. Control ensures that all human
experience is of-and in-time. and opening up Space. Most crucially.solidating an alliance with the
non-anthropoid primates.some time previously Kaye's suspicions had been aroused by
Burroughs's increasingly obsessional attitude to his cats.son' for
human. It is not surprising that the forces ranged against
him-the many forces ranged against him.skl's words took on a horrible new meaning for Burroughs in
the library.
Why does Control need humans?
Control needs time. ' It does not represent cosmic war: it is already a
weapon in that war. For Kaye it was evident
that this intensifying attachment to domestic felines was part of a
more basic drive. including ' raccoons.sode' repeatedly Stressed the importance of the year 1987.set.
'Cats may be my last Living link to a dying species' (CJ 67).suading the con.s definition of man as the 'time-binding animal' has
a double sense for Burroughs.

14 'The Land
of The Lemur People' (NE 110). a Wild West. Captain Mission. just as 'Captain Mission was drifting out faster and faster. or occult door-keepers. pens.284 Alternatives: Realities and Resistances
'mouse lemur' (GC 4). as in a puzzle' (GC 15). (Burroughs 1987:31)
The Board conceived Mission's traffic with lemurs.
reaching back 'before the appearance of man on earth. even Mission's
piratical career was a relatively trivial transgression..
'Mission was spending more and more time in the jungle with his
lemurs' (GC 11}-the ghosts of a lost continent-slipping into time
disturbances and spiral patterns.
and under. The Ghost Lemurs of
Madagascar' (Burroughs 1987:29).
sticking out like a disorderly tumor cut by a rift of future contours. He discovered through this dead and dying
species that the key to escaping control is taking the initiative-or
the pre-initiative-by interlinking with the Old Ones. interlinked by lemurs. a joint templex
innovation that predates the split between creation and recording. 'ln a prereco rded and therefore totally
predictable universe. Lemurs became his sleeping and
dream companions. They date
back one hundred sixty million years.] Captain Mission's
unwholesome concern with lemurs' (Burroughs 1987:28).
parchment' (29)).
They feel themselves thrown forward 160 million years as they
access the Big Picture. which could result in altering the prerecorded future. to the time when Madagascar
split off from the mainland of Africa. and out. Of these 'facts' none was more
repugnant to common human rationality than their mutual involvement with The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar.
this long rift like a vast indentation. a seismic slippage from geological time into
transcendental time anomaly. mediumistic familiars. He is seated at a writing table ('with inkpot. Mission and Burroughs find 'immortality'
through involvement with the native populations of unlife. wraiths. and out. He uses a native drug to explore the gateway. 'the gentle deer lemur' (GC 18). Kaye placed particular emphasis on
Burroughs's 1987 visit to the Duke University Lemur Center. but some of them can remain in the invisible
state for years at a time. his
Ghost' (29). his experiments
in time sorcery. Who
built it? When? The tale comes to him in a time-faulted vision. but there it
is: ' [A]n old illustrated book with gilt edges. from the Board's perspective.
Kaye was highly dismissive of all critical accounts that treated
Mission as a literary avatar. '[A]n old picture book with gilt
edged lithographs. The vision echoes or
overlaps. and to
his double.
Captain Mission was guilty of this sin' (Burroughs 1987:27). and his anachro nistic entanglement with Burroughs
as a single intolerable threat.
As initiatory beings.
'When attached to Africa. Lemurs are
denizens of the Western Lands.
transmitted in hieroglyphics.
It is difficult to describe where the text comes from. ln
describing this process. 15
In their joint voyage across the ghost continent of Lemuria. It was
this colony of lemurs that introduced Burroughs to the West
Lemurian 'time pocket' (GC 15). It was on the island of
Madagascar that Captain Mission discovered that 'the word for
"lemur" meant "ghosr in the native language' (GC 2)-just as the
Romans spoke of lemures." a voice repeated in his head' (GC 17). inside the 'ancient stone structure' (Burroughs 1987:28) ·with the lemur who is 'his phantom. but rather that of
'anachronistic contemporaries'.
these animals returned Burroughs to lost Lemurian landscapes. They find these concepts repugnant and difficult to understand. onion paper over each picture. 16 whilst-on the other side of timeWestern Lemuria drifts back up into the present.
Lemurian Tune War 285
'Now more lemurs appear. much older. 12 bound together in a knot of 'definite yet cognitively distressing facts' ..
'We offer refuge to all people everywhere who suffer under the
tyranny of governments' (CRN 265). although. They might be called psychic
amphibians-that is. the blackest sin is to tamper with the prerecording. quiH. the 'great red island' (GC 16) of
Madagascar. before the
beginning of time' (GC 15). caught in a vast undertow of time. like the deft that divides the
human body' (GC 16). not oriented toward time and sequence and
causality. it always does. ultimately.
If time travel ever happens. "Out.
He finds himself at the gateway. visible only for short periods when they assume a
solid form to breathe. Madagascar was the ultimate landmass. 'as if Burroughs was basically an experimental novelist'. Their way of thinking and feeling is basically
different from ours. 13 This statement was sufficient to awaken the hostile interest of the Powers
That Be. and. He maintained that the relation between Burroughs
and Mission was not that of author to character. The island of Madagascar shears away
from the African mainland. time-twinning waves where Mission and Burroughs coincide. The Lemurian
. declared Mission. or shades of the dead. He 'chooses a quill pen' (29). They copy an invocation or summoning. which Mission knew as Western Lemuria.
The Lemur people are older than Homo Sap. Their primary
concern was 'a more significant danger [. The Ghost
Lemurs of Madagascar in gold script' (30).

Exterminate the brutes . as one side 'of the rift drifted into
enchanted timeless innocence' and the other ' moved inexorably
toward language.
requiring radical correction. the timebound. for a number of reasons. He was sensitive to transmissions. In this. Mission had understood this well: 'No quarter. tool use. and controllable through junk. no compromise is possible.
What the Board needed was a dead end. that the forthcoming 1987 'story' would be 'lost
amongst the self-marginalizing fictions of a crumbling junky fag'. with the circle apparently complete. Which side are you on? Too
late to change now. openly aligning itself with the lemur people. 18
According to Kaye. everyone 'on the inside' knew about the bad
dreams. He described him
as an identifiable contemporary individual-working as an agent
of 'the Board'-whose task was to seal the 'ancient structure' that
provides access to the Rift. the Board appropriated the text as the record of a precognitive intuition. for instance.
Yet. Separated by a curtain of fire' (Burroughs
1987:31).' 19
What Mission had released. socially
marginalized.
From deep in the ages of slow Panic17 they see the 'People of the
Cleft.
Kaye's own final words to Ccru. and its final words are 'lost beneath the waves'
(Burroughs 1987:34).
On the outside it worked as a cover-up. certain they were coming from a real place. back to the little lemur
people' (GC 54). in 1987' (Burroughs 1987:34). 11ze Glzost Lemurs of
Madagascar announced its turbular Lemurian destination from the
beginning. but the Insiders had a still
mor~ essential task. and of OGU: defend the integrity of the timeline. Burroughs had bound again. weapon use. exploitation. the free. flash through a
hundred sixty million years to the Split. written on a scrap of paper upon
which he had scrawled hurriedly in a spiderish hand that already
. 'They're speaking of White Chronomancy'. the tethered' (GC 13). That is how
it seemed to the Board in 1987.
lime crystallizes.
It seems never to have occurred to the Board that Burroughs would
change the ending. It disregarded fundamental principles of
sequence and causality. The text was a self-confessed time-abomination. and Burroughs awakens screaming from dreams of 'dead lemurs scattered through the settlement'
(GC 7).
' the sealing of runaway time-disturbances within closed loops. a ghost of chance. Kaye considered Bradly Martin. the Board closes in on the lemur people.
Confident that the transcendental closure of time was being
achieved. and
slavery' (GC 49).. war.. Kaye's reconstruction of the 1987 event depended centrally
upon The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar. a chance that is
already dead: '[T)he might-have-beens who had one chance in a billion and lost' (GC 18). which dated itself with
the words 'Now.
Burroughs entitled it The Ghost ofChance. Kaye insisted. This Great Work involved horrifying compromises. 'the split
between the wild.20 Things that should have been long finished continued to stiL It was as if a post-mortem coincidence or unlife influence had vortically reanimated itself. It
confirmed their primary imperative and basic doctrine. They had inherited the responsibility for enforcing the Law of Time. on a
chance that has already passed. 'Mission knows
that a chance that occurs only once in a hundred and sixty million
years has been lost forever' (GC 21). They were confident. an account he cited as if it were
a strictly factual record. A strange doubling occurred. and the tame. even a sacred text.286 Alternatives: Realities and Resistances
continent sinks into the distant future. formulated by chaos and accelerated time.
The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar opens out on to the Rift. He explained that this was
an interpretative stance that had been highly developed by the Board. that their 'dead end' would open a road to the
Western Lands. foretelling
the ultimate triumph of OGU and the total eradication of Lemurian
insurgency. The Board had no doubt-this was a return to the
true horror.
The Board had long known that the Vysparov Library contained an
old copy of The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar. stranding the red island with
its marooned lemur people. he explained.
Which side are you on?
As time rigidifies. 'What is the meaning of 160 million
years without time? And what does time mean to foraging lemurs?'
(GC 16-17).
and that to respect the reality even of non-actualities is essential when
waging war in deeply virtualized environments: in spaces that teem
with influential abstractions and other ghostly things. as so
much else. time.
Kaye recalled. as concentric contractions seize the spiral mass. the timeless. Burroughs was an obvious choice. a prophecy that could be mined for information. masking the return of the
Old Ones in the seemingly innocuous words: 'People of the world
are at last returning to their source in spirit. Kaye cited
the hermetic maxim: strict obedience to the Law excuses grave transgressions. It had been catalogued
Lemurian Tune War 287
there since 1789. amenable to misogyny and mammal-chauvinism. to be entirely real. for those with eyes to see. This is war to extermination' (GC 9).

What I feel for my cats present and past' (LW 253). no final solution. Outside Madagascar.
The concept of the 'spiral templex'. Kaye seemed to be suggesting that Mission and Burroughs
were the same person. although his reasoning
was at times obscure and less than wholly persuasive to Ccru.
NOTES
1. Lemuria sinks into obscure depths once again.
Kaye was adamant that the existence of these two texts could not be
attributed to either coincidence or plagiarism. caught within the vortex of a mysterious ' personality interchange' that could not be resolved within time.
4.
10.
The extent of Burroughs's attachment to his feline companions is
evidenced by his final words. Spooner and
Calico.
7. the 'true £. is fully detailed
in R. Lemuria has been buried by scientific progres. Atlantis
immediately precedes the modem world. like I felt for Retch and Ruski. He stated at this.
In the Secret Doctrine. The name of each lost continent is
.
Lemuria was the original home of man. Haeckel. fossils.
In the late nineteenth century. Pure love.
Kaye insisted.
6.
Burroughs described his productio n methods-<:ut-ups and fold-ins---as a
time travel technology coded as a passage across dedmal magnitudes: 'I
take page one and fold it into page one hundred-I insert the resulting
composite as page ten-\~en the reader reads page ten he is flashing forwards in time to page one hundred and back in time to page one' (WV 96). o r biological remainders of a hypothetical continent: living
ghosts of a lost world.
15.s.
Ccru was never fully confident as to the exact meaning of this pronouncement. however. in the Digital Hyperstition issue of Allstract Culturt
(vo lume 4).
8. apes.
9. who
on several occasions noted that the number for Refuge in Roget's
111esa11ms is 666. Lemurs are treated
as relics. According to Theosophical orthodoxy. On
this basis.
As a scientific conjecture. termination
confuses itself with eddies of a latent spiral current. which indude
Madagascan lemurs. He considered the
biological unity of the human species to have since been lost (diSintegrating into twelve diStinct species). and older than. in the endnotes to this document.den'.
A brief overview of this material has been published by Ccru as The
Templeton Episode'. but the science of plate tectonics has also
replaced the notion of 'sunken continents' with that of continental drift. Blavatsky describes Lemuria as the third in a succession of lost continents. H. There
13.astern Africa led nineteenth-century paleontologists and geologists to postulate a lost landmass that once connected the
two now separated regions.
5. speculating that it provided a 50Jutio n to the Darwinian mystery of the ' missing link' (the absence of
immediately pre-human species from the fossil record). Australian galgoes (or bushbabies). It is preceded by Polarea and Hyperborea. and animal species found
in South Asia and £. and followed by
Atlantis (whJd1 was built from a fragment of Western Lemuria). Asian lorises.
is no final enough of wisdom. experience-any fucking thing. P.
and the tarsiers of the Philippines and Indonesia.ed upon by
occultists.ast Asia.
Puzzling consistencies between rocks.
first and last face-to-face encounter. on grounds that he refused to divulge.
'ow bypassed by oecumenic rationality as a scientific fiction or an
accidental myth.oologist Phillip L Sdater named the hypothetical continent 'Lemuria'.
There are two sub-Orders of primates. went much
further than this. remain consistent with
this unsatisfactory conclusion: 'Across the time rift. the anthropoids (consisting of
mo nkeys.
Stt Burroughs's letters from January 1959. competition from the anthropoids has
driven all prosimians into a nocturnal mode of existence. Lemuria was eagerly seiz.
We have recorded our comments and doubts.
The only constraint imposed by the magazine was that there should not
be too much sex. E. providing a home
for the series of seven 'Root Races'.
3.
Haeckel's theoretical investment in Lemuria.
Burroughs writes of Madagascar providing 'a vast sanctuary for the
lemurs and for the delicate spirits that breathe through them' (GC 16). that this meeting
was not a chance encounter but had in some way been orchestrated by
the Order. Templeton's Miskatonic lectures on transcendental time travel. No Holy
Grail.
H. This theory was vigorously supported by
E. Although this openness would seem to run counter to the hermetic spirit of occult science. Only thing can
resolve conflict is love. Kaye described it as 'surprisingly common
amongst magicians'. all traces of
which had been submerged by its disappearance. The prosirnians constitute a branch of evolutio n diStinct from. For Haeckel. the English l. as recorded in his diaries: ' Nothing is.
11. according to which the rigorous
analysis of all time anomalies excavates a spiral structure.288 Alternatives: Realities and Resistances
Lemurian Tune War 289
indicated the tide of encroaching insanity. The relevance of this point still largely escapes Ccru. along with details of his
story.
This convergence of ecological and political refuge fascinated Kaye. that his purpose in contacting Ccru
was to ensure that his tale would be 'protected against the ravages of
time'. The irony was not immediately apparent.'
•
12. and two further continents are
still to come.
This story was commissioned and published by Omni magazine in 1987. or Land of the Lemurs. the anthropoids. who used it to explain the diStribution of Lemur-related
species throughout Southern Africa and South and South-£. who-like their scientific cousins-wove it into elaborate
evolutionary and racial theories. a commentary on the Atlantean Book of Dzyan. He proposed that the invented continent was the
probable cradle of the human race. each such 'continent' is the geographical aspect of a spiritual epoch. Just conflict.
14. and humans) and the prosimians. Ccru first met 'William Kaye' on 20 March 1999. No Final Satori. our
2.
Kaye noted that both Vysparov and Burroughs had been mutually forthcoming about their respective experiences of a ' mystico-trarucendental
nature'.
Not only have palaeontologists largely diSpelled the problem of the missing link through additional finds.

and thus as more highly developed than
the original scientific conception). however. Omni Books. beyond the basic God
standard of Fear and Danger. (2002) Atlantis and Lemuria (NL: Freedonia Books).
Levi. The Venusians volunteered to take
the place of the Lhas. IN Datlow. (1998) ••runching a Hole in the Big Lie The Achievement of
William S. Burroughs'. and also for the overall distribution of terrestrial landmass during that period (in this latter respect it can even be seen as consistent with continental drift. propitiated by a
festival in May.
The Romans conceived the lemures as vampire-ghosts.S
Burroughs.
Burroughs drifts out of the White Magical orbit as his lemur commitments strengthen-to the Board. or the Western Lands.
0
:
. A. whilst Madagascar is n ow thought to have broken away from
the African mainland 120 million years ago.
20. The word
' lemur' is derived from the Latin /emure-literally.
17. S.
Omni Visions One (North Carolina.
used ambiguously to designate the core territory of the dominant root
race of that age. the heels of
which stuck out so far they could as easily walk bad-wards as forwards'. W. but now refused. Eliphas Levi writes of '[l)arvae and Iemures.
it cannot have been lost upon her. indicate that the problem of 'time-enforcement' is
actually far more intricate. that Lemuria
was a name for the land of the dead.
Steiner. ed.
According to current scientific consensus. E. rema. de (1978) Lest Continents: The Atlm1tis T11eme in History.
According to his account the Lemurians discovered sex during the fourth
sub-race. If this is the o nly type of time travel 'allowed' by
nature.
W. Lemuria has been increasingly merged into
Churchward's lost pacific continent of Mu. the presence
of lemurs on Madagascar becomes puzzling. They work to make things
Lemurian Time War 291
come out as they must. some with four arms and some
with an eye in the back of their heads. whose body was less solid. for it gives access to the gift that supersedes all other gifts:
Immortality' (WL 124). It is the most heavily guarded road in the
world. then it obviously shouldn't require a law to maintain it (such as
the notorious 'don't kill granny').
This behavior disgusted the spiritual Lhas who were supposed to
incarnate into them. Burroughs's geological tale is nevertheless a recognizably modem one. Scott Elliot adds that the Lemurians had ' huge feet. There is broad consensus among occultists that
the rear~ye of the Lemurians persists vestigially as the human pineal
gland. and ' unsettled'. the 'ape-like.
With the submergence of the Lemuria hypothesis.
Rudolf Steiner was also fascinated by the Lemurians. however.
18. Burroughs's figure of 160 million years is exaggerated. trans. while interbreeding with beasts and producing the great apes. with no reference to continental subsidence. 1993).rking that
'[t]his Root-Race as a whole had not yet developed memory' (2002:68). drifting steadily eastwards
until even parts of modem California have been assimilated to it. (1987) The Ghost Lemurs of Madagascar'.
More· recently.
shadowy images of bodies which have lived and of those which have yet
to come. R.
plastic. Science and
Literature (New York: Dover Press). The rigorous time-law policies of the
Board.
Douglas.
REFERENCF.290 Alternatives: Realities and Resistances
16. issued from these vapours by myriads' (Levi 2001:126).
L Sprague de Camp describes Blavatskys third root race. The road to the Western Lands is by definition the most dangerous road
in the world. I WV pp.. LS. Lemurs are only 55 million
years old.
Camp. A. xv-x:xviii. (2001) TI1e History of Magic. his support for the cause of lemur
conservation (the Lemur Conservation Fund) must have been the final
and intolerable provocation. E.
The 'Lemurian was a born magician' (73).
Although Blavatsky credits Sclater as the source for the name Lemuria. Waite. (New York: Weiser
Books). 'shade of the dead'. and also taught the Lemurians various secrets
(including those of metallurgy. for it is a journey beyond Death.
19.
hennaphroditic egg-laying Lemurians. E.
Burroughs remarks of Mission: 'He was himself an emissary of Panic. In this vein.
The physical conception of 'closed time-like curves' invokes a causality
from the future to make the past what it is. whose downfall was caused by their
discovery of sex' (1978:58). or her fellow occultists. of the
knowledge that man fears above all else: the truth of his origin' (GC 3). weaving and agriculture).